OviStore - EPIC FAIL?

[vereal]

Hi guys.
Our company has recently published the first application in OviStore. Throughout the entire process of publishing, we encountered glitches and shortcomings of the system.
First one - huge time for QA and re waiting for the slightest changes in content.
After the approval of QA and the beginning of publication, it was found they had a bug and the application is not shown in the list and search. Possible to view content only by knowing the exact address. Naturally, this excludes the possibility of sales. A week already such a situation.
Now it turned out that it is impossible to show the Lite version of the same application. We need to contrive to show it on the list and search.
But on the other hand, in the list of applications running dozens or hundreds of unnecessary blog-apps, among which are impossible to find something really worthwhile.
I can imagine what a nightmare will be to profit calculations and delay in payments.
PublishToOvi.Support@nokia.com respond to the letters selectively. Sometimes answer to completely different questions, and "thank you for your patience"...

What patience? It is a complete incompetence of OviStore employees. For such should be dismissed without severance pay!
After all, we are trying to improve the platform, and they put a stick in our wheel! At the same time we pay for it 30-40% of the profits. But is it possible to name THIS a business?
Rather like an amateurishness. Andriod and iOS constantly moving forward, and Nokia like "in a tank". And okay it was only the beginning, but the store is more than a year old! Or this is a deliberate sabotage.
I think these bugs do not run out until we massively state our opinion to Nokia management! Propose a general angry letter and send it to all Nokia addresses that will find.

Finally I want to show the whole OviStore in one picture.

[jetrix74]

I don't think that mailing anybody would help. I have worked for one of the worlds biggest IT companies, and I know that the problems at Nokias OVI QA are known among the management. Problems this size are discussed in the corridors.

About the QA-staff . They do not have the time and resources to answer all the "why my app is not published... Why don't you do this and this..." -questions because they are busy doing their job. Not long a go a bug I had missed was found in one of my games. It was not critical but could have been annoying for the player. The game failed the QA and is now at the back of the QA queue, but that is only good thing since that ensures that end users gets bug free products. They don't have workflow to implement all the suggestiong of how they should improve their work. They have a plan that was made a year ago and money outlines that plan. It's about how much the business creates to Nokia vs. how much they are investing into it. I believe that the only way we can really help is to create good games and apps that makes OVI store more popular. As it grows and gets more used by average Joe and Jane it gains more attention among media making it more sensible to Nokia invest more resources to OVI.

[RomanAge]

As publishers, we would like to feel that we are valuable, that Nokia is showing some consideration for the work we are putting. Sadly, there are so many publishers, and new ones are joining everyday. To put it simply, one publisher is not important. This is partly common to other app stores, but here pushed to extremes by choices that Nokia has made:
Ovi store started not so long ago, with 50 euros registration, open to companies only, and need for publishers to sign with Symbian.
Now it is 1 euro registration, opening to individual developers, and there is Nokia free signing.

Those were business decisions, and the result is what they expected (I believe): have more publishers, more submissions, more applications published, increasing the popularity of the store. This obviously comes at the expense of good relations/support between Nokia and the publishers, but once you accept it you can see it as a mere business strategy rather than contempt or incompetence.

Now I may be wrong, or it may be just a transition, they may be genuinely planning to improve the publisher's experience, I hope so, but if it works the way it is from a business point of view (I think OVI has seen a huge increase in the number of downloads), then sadly I don't really see why they would want to change.

[Sasler]

While I do agree that not everything is working as well as it should, I doubt very much that channelling ones frustrations in few angry emails would do any good. However, having a place where publisher could have honest but constructive conversation with the OVI team (especially those who make the decisions about it) would be great. I'm sure that most of the publishers over here would have quite few suggestions that would benefit the publishers themselves, Nokia and the end users. Also, if the publishers would be more "in the loop" as why something is like it is or what changes can be expected soon and so on, it would be easier to be patient.

Cheers

[mazebo]

... having a place where publisher could have honest but constructive conversation with the OVI team (especially those who make the decisions about it) would be great.

What better place than here?
Sadly, Ovi people are all but invisible here, except for the occasional, rushed ".. we are looking in to that." batch.

[vereal]

What better place than here?
Sadly, Ovi people are all but invisible here, except for the occasional, rushed ".. we are looking in to that." batch.

I also think there shouldn't be such silence from OVI team.
I've created a new topic, similar to the bugtracker.
OviStore - Wishlist from publishers
If at least one of them will respond, so all is not lost.